see if I could discover anything like a proteus, and I asked the guide if on his former visit he had seen any animal in the pool, but he said he had not. The paths through the cavern are generally very good, and broad enough for two or three persons to walk abreast, and have in many places been widened and levelled by art, but the road from the curtain to the end of the grotto, passes over a chaos of rocks and large broken stalactites; these, though now united by the all-binding lime-water into shapeless masses of rock, formerly composed the roof, but have now given place to newer formations, so that even in these subterraneous caverns, as in all other of nature's works, man beholds destruction only as making way for regeneration. The process is one of the slowest, but sure in its effects; an accident, the shock of an earthquake for example, may strew the floor of the cavern with the stalactites which hang from the roof, yet the impregnated water flows from above, deposits the limestone, and in a few centuries, the roof is again ornamented with its curious and beautiful fretwork. Retracing our steps through the different halls, temples, and passages, we again found ourselves on the banks of the subterraneous river. This is the Laibach, which rising in the plain above Adelsberg, enters the mountain, and after flowing through the cavern and underground for a considerable distance, again appears at the foot of the hill near Planina. We crossed the little bridge, ascended the rocks, and taking a last look around the vast and dark cupola by which we had first entered, I bade adieu to the caverns of Adelsberg. On coming out of the mountain, the air felt very cold, for the temperature within had been very agreeable, almost warm. It was past one o'clock, so that we had been three hours under ground. The moon was up, and guided by her clear light, we soon reached the inn, where I dreamt till morning of grottos, and caverns and their spirit inhabitants.